Ogilvy Launches New Entertainment Practice

Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide has formed a new entertainment practice area that will offer specialized counsel in areas such as trade and consumer media relations for corporate and celebrity clients and event production and marketing.

NEW YORK, May 16—Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide has formed a new entertainment practice area with more than 80 employees. The new practice will offer specialized counsel in areas such as trade and consumer media relations for corporate and celebrity clients; talent representation; event production and marketing; corporate sponsorship outreach; celebrity recruitment and management; hospitality/travel public relations; and creative and collateral development.

Ogilvy PR entered the entertainment arena in 1999 with the acquisition of B|W|R, with offices in Los Angeles and New York. The new practice will operate under the B|W|R brand and will be led by Henry Eshelman, who also heads the corporate entertainment group. Cindy Guagenti will run the talent unit, and Paulette Kam, will oversee the consumer and lifestyles products unit. Each has been with B|W|R for at least 15 years.

According to Ogilvy chairman and CEO Bob Seltzer, “We’ve formed the entertainment practice for two primary reasons: to mimic the entertainment industry’s expansion across many sectors such as news, sports, technology, luxury and lifestyle marketing, and second, to expand this capability throughout our global network.

“By bringing together B|W|R’s strengths with some of the special experience of Ogilvy team members in one practice, we’ll be much better able to serve both our entertainment clients and our traditional clients seeking alliances with the entertainment industry.”

Ogilvy’s current entertainment client roster includes more than 150 talent clients including Ben Affleck, Brad Pitt, Renee Zellweger and Reese Witherspoon and has run winning Oscar campaigns for three of its clients—Jennifer Connelly, Benicio del Toro, and Hilary Swank—in the past three years. It also handles a number of hit TV shows including Malcom in the Middle and Spin City, as well as travel clients such as Beaches/Sandals Resorts and corporate clients such as Perrier and BMW Designworks.